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A review by dellydoos
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Ah! I have VERY mixed emotions on this one. Firstly I’m a lover of the Hunger Games series, and miss Katniss Everdeen really served a slay of all slays. She ate and left no crumbs, miss thing. But Mr Coriolanus Snow, on the other hand? Not so much.
The initial dive into Snow's villain origin story, with his complex emotions and possessive affections, promised something irresistibly delicious and devilishly bad. Who was the man before he became President Snow, and what's with all those roses? I was hooked in the beginning and felt the character-driven narrative really shone here. I enjoyed the dynamic between Lucy Grey and Snow, even if it was a little simple. Watching Snow grow up in poverty I understood clearly his motivates of why he was so focused on helping Lucy through the Games- for his own betterment of course. The dynamic promised a juicy exploration of his character. However, my enthusiasm waned in the second half of the book, as the execution of the storyline left me feeling underwhelmed.
It seemed apparent throughout the narrative that Collins perhaps had too many ideas and not enough focus. The pacing dipped significantly after the 10th Hunger Games ended- which was halfway through the book! This left a gaping hole for the remaining second half, which felt burdened by Snow's endless inner monologues and seemingly irrelevant dialogues. Simply put, the book was too long. Half the time was dedicated to setting up the Hunger Games, and the rest lost momentum in the aftermath. The Games themselves, honestly, I found to be quite dull and concluded before anything truly interesting happened.
The second half of the book also was full of heavy-handed metaphors that were just painfully obvious. Rather than subtle foreshadowing, they felt overly forced, robbing the narrative of the nuance and finesse found in the original series. And then the ending, oh my, what even was that? Not controversial enough to be interesting, yet too drawn-out to be impactful? The balance between controversy and impact was elusive, resulting in a conclusion that left me scratching my head, caught in a strange limbo between interest and dissatisfaction. I ended up skipping the majority of the second half as the inner monologues became too dull for me to bother following—a somewhat self-inflicted issue, which potentially lead me to the very meh ending.
An unfortunate 3/5 stars.
I’m sad. Time to go rewatch the movies.
The initial dive into Snow's villain origin story, with his complex emotions and possessive affections, promised something irresistibly delicious and devilishly bad. Who was the man before he became President Snow, and what's with all those roses? I was hooked in the beginning and felt the character-driven narrative really shone here. I enjoyed the dynamic between Lucy Grey and Snow, even if it was a little simple. Watching Snow grow up in poverty I understood clearly his motivates of why he was so focused on helping Lucy through the Games- for his own betterment of course. The dynamic promised a juicy exploration of his character. However, my enthusiasm waned in the second half of the book, as the execution of the storyline left me feeling underwhelmed.
It seemed apparent throughout the narrative that Collins perhaps had too many ideas and not enough focus. The pacing dipped significantly after the 10th Hunger Games ended- which was halfway through the book! This left a gaping hole for the remaining second half, which felt burdened by Snow's endless inner monologues and seemingly irrelevant dialogues. Simply put, the book was too long. Half the time was dedicated to setting up the Hunger Games, and the rest lost momentum in the aftermath. The Games themselves, honestly, I found to be quite dull and concluded before anything truly interesting happened.
The second half of the book also was full of heavy-handed metaphors that were just painfully obvious. Rather than subtle foreshadowing, they felt overly forced, robbing the narrative of the nuance and finesse found in the original series. And then the ending, oh my, what even was that? Not controversial enough to be interesting, yet too drawn-out to be impactful? The balance between controversy and impact was elusive, resulting in a conclusion that left me scratching my head, caught in a strange limbo between interest and dissatisfaction. I ended up skipping the majority of the second half as the inner monologues became too dull for me to bother following—a somewhat self-inflicted issue, which potentially lead me to the very meh ending.
An unfortunate 3/5 stars.
I’m sad. Time to go rewatch the movies.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
Moderate: Cannibalism
Minor: Rape